MUMBAI

As always, working in India can be a real challenge, especially if on a tight schedule: Talents cancelling the night before the shoot, on set colleagues with stomach pains, the usual traffic madness and so on.

Thanks to my dear friend Haresh, we did get all we wanted, including a whole train to ourselves, that pulled into the yard just one hour late.

The drinking water story was a lot of fun – from casting in the classrooms – to agency meetings in the schoolyard, where Micheal showed the results.

The shooting in the mall had to be finished by 11 am, to be on the safe side, we showed up at 6 am. However, half of the crew, agency, talents, and the photographer had come down with serious stomach upsets (the notoriously famous Bombay-belly) and often had to disappear or even lie down to rest while the set was being built. We ended up using the make up girl as the model for the mother figure and nearly finished in time. Well, just one hour late. What a day!

JOHANNESBURG

It was a shock arriving from tropical India in Joburg in wintertime.

Shooting on the famous Nelson Mandela Bridge, where early mornings were below zero degrees and strong winds, was a resilience test for us all. Hiding in a small café that had opened early for us only gave a small reprieve from the icy elements. However, the young talents braved all of that and were marvellous, having much fun acting and talking.

Luckily the other stories were shot at different locations and set inside .

And then a very long flight to Sao Paulo.

SAO PAULO

The new Pinheiros station on the Metro Line 4 was the desired location. Five stories underground, with lots of light, colours and people. After the peak of the morning rush hour, we shot with a lot of extras till about noon. The evening shoot was around the city park and theatre. The famous Cervejaria Brahma was the last stop for a night cap.

The next day we went out to the sugar cane area near Santa Cruz. It was overcast all day, but 5 minutes of sun at the right time was enough for Michael to take some great shots.